Thursday, July 30, 2009

Sangokushi Ryoriya, Boon Tat Street

Not long ago, I saw a few ramen banners flying outside from a distance (3 Boon Tat Street #01-01, 6423-0366), and thought that maybe a new ramen shop had opened. It was only after I came by that I realized that this was just another outlet of that Japanese Taiwanese place that I'd passed by so many times at Robertson Quay before. Japanese style Taiwanese food (think: Taiwanese food catered to Japanese palates...or how food would taste if you went to a Taiwanese restaurant in Japan) never really sounded that interesting though.

But since I was here already and needed food, I went inside to give it a shot. I grabbed this bowl of Taiwanese soup noodles, whose broth was very salty and wasn't that localized to Japan. Similarly, the bon bon ji (or bang bang chicken), also turned out to be rather salty. Thus, I figured that I'd try something that was more Japanese than Taiwanese, like a daikon salad. One could see the Taiwanese influence of sliced jellyfish, but - again - this was also puzzlingly salty.

The only things that weren't salty were the gyoza and chahan. The gyoza were frail but very Taiwanese given the chive stuffing inside (dragon breath alert). Through all of this, the chahan was the best. Seasoned just right, this was good enough to rival Ohsho. I might not have found enough here to draw me back right away, but it was interesting to see how popular this place was with the Japanese population. Maybe the food was meant to be salty in order to go well with all of that post-work beer.